Question: If OpenFlow or some other SDN protocol takes off and you’re able to abstract directly at each device rather than relying on an overlay technology, what kind of value can you derive from that?

Sequeira: I think what we have today is good enough for most of what we are trying achieve for network virtualization. Ultimately the number one problem we’re trying to solve in enterprise data centers is speed and agility of provisioning and efficiency. The whole point of a software-defined data center is to virtualize the rest of the data center. VMware-enabled provisioning allowed provisioning of servers within two minutes and for $300, whereas in the past it took 10 days and $10,000.

The rest of the problem is it takes five days to provision the rest — VLANs, IP address management, firewalls, storage availability. If you can provision these networks quickly, you have solved that problem. We believe with VXLAN and SDN we have solved that problem substantially. So customers aren’t asking us for OpenFlow. They are asking for agility of provisioning and seamlessness of experience when they start to bring up compute with network and storage alongside. In that particular instance, OpenFlow doesn’t bring you immediate value.

Then why even consider OpenFlow in the data center? With OpenFlow you get a lot more granularity of visibility and control. With overlays, for the most part, it works. Most people build their fabrics and have headroom in their fabric. With OpenFlow you can be much more efficient, much like Google showed in their WAN. You can program each flow; you can bring up applications and say, ‘I want this application to take this specific path through the network.’ When you want much more specific control over your traffic, then you can look at OpenFlow. Likewise, you can ultimately get a lot more diagnostic capabilities because you know what is happening when an application has an issue with a server. You can quickly pinpoint what went wrong with the server.

But people aren’t ready for it yet. Today people want to monitor networks with existing tools. Even if the technology was 100% there today, it takes a while for organizations to change people and processes. If you have 200 Stanford Ph.D.s and you own your own fiber and can build your own boxes in your backyard and you own your own traffic and have proprietary applications, then [Openflow] is for you [now].

Question: So enterprises don’t need OpenFlow, and they will probably wait until somebody commercializes it?

そうなると、エンタープライズは OpenFlow を必要とせず、また、誰かが商用化するまで、それを待つことになるのか？

Sequeira: Exactly. If all you are doing is working on your own proprietary applications like Google, Facebook or Zynga, that’s one problem. Our problem is very different. The reason VMware is so solidly grounded in enterprises is because 90% of these applications have been running in networks for years and years. VMware enabled these existing applications to be containerized and you’re able to insert the virtualization layer, which allows you slip in new hardware without touching the applications. All these new applications we talk a lot about — big data and Hadoop — that’s not what most enterprises are facing today. It’s the 95% of applications in enterprise that we want move forward.

Question: Do you see VMware competing with Nicira Networks, Big Switch Networks and NEC?

VMware は、Nicira／Big Switch／NEC などと競合するのか?

Sequeira: The real question is: Are Nicira and Big Switch a feature in VMware? We are not looking to compete with them. The onus is on them to find an important and relevant area that solves a unique problem. Solving network virtualization in the context of a VMware stack? We’ve got that nailed. In other words, we don’t believe that we need an outside answer to solve a virtualization problem for our VMware stack.